Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Attention grabber

Quite a while back, oh, like 1967, a fellow by the name of Alan Coren wrote a book that he hoped would garner both a bit more attention and whole lot more moolah than his previous writings. Being a writer for the late English humor magazine "Punch", he opted to go overboard as far as the cover and title of this book. The British humorist was once advised that anyone seeking to draw the attention of the book-buying public should write about cats, golf or Nazis. Coren promptly went all out with this suggestion and published this collection of essays as "Golfing for Cats.Its cover? A picture of a cat in a Nazi uniform wielding a putter (That book cover was unavailable for display, so a concoction appears here)

Except for the explanation of the book's title, the words "cat", "golf", and "Nazis" do not appear anywhere else in the text. The book itself was o.k., not anything rip-snortingly funny. Monty Python was in its infancy and therefore completely over the top, so rip-snorting was being monopolized by them at that time.

The book did, however, garner a lot of attention and buying; the two things Coren was looking for. Stealing his idea (although at least acknowledging the source) has become necessary here, as the # of trailblazers coming upon my blog has dwindled to a brave and hardy few. Perhaps this addition will help the cause. I'm not including the Golf theme though, in fairness to all potential blog readers.

Scottish legend has it that Golf was an old acronym for Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden. All and any ladies are most welcome here. Forward in all directions!